Her Mad Song Read online

  Welcome to the end of the earth.

  Tempest Bay is a beautiful New Zealand town of stormy climate and folk horror. People come here to feel alive again. But the weather is changing.

  Tempest Bay exists in novellas, podcasts, and interactive experiences. We’re building it one step at a time, as an indie studio.

  If you’re on your own strange journey, you may find something here.

  Her Mad Song

  A Project Tempest Story

  C. J. Halbard

  Copyright © 2021 Man on Fire, Ltd

  Electronic edition

  ISBNs:

  978-0-473-55231-2 (Epub)

  978-0-473-55232-9 (Kindle)

  978-0-473-55233-6 (PDF)

  Written by C. J. Halbard

  Cover art by Dominik Zdenković

  Cover design by Kearin Armstrong

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic content. It is intended only for those aged 18 and older.

  Man on Fire, Ltd

  Wellington

  New Zealand

  [email protected]

  project-tempest.net

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Illustration

  Epigraph

  I: No Bus Now

  Tempest Bay

  Western Clifftops

  Drinking Shivers

  Talking Shite

  II: Investigations

  Settling in

  Hermit Cave

  Idle Hour

  No Graveyard

  III: Nastiness

  Beach Creature

  The Itch

  Beloved Shoes

  Terror Cottage

  Beach Flame

  Invisible Things

  IV: The Storm

  Raised Shovel

  No Escape

  Fury Rising

  Open up

  Hedy Vs Distraction

  Selva Oscura

  Pursue Me

  To the Cinema

  Starlight

  V: Aftermath

  Plastic Chairs

  Author’s Note

  A Conversation with C. J. Halbard

  Excerpt from 1862

  About the Author

  ‘Candle in the Storm’

  Dominik Zdenković

  dominikzdenkovic.com

  The natural state of the world is madness, and our efforts at civilisation and technology are merely false shelters from that truth.

  —The Invisible Storm: Meteorology & Imagination, by H.B.

  Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

  —Mary Oliver

  I

  No Bus Now

  Tempest Bay

  They got off the bus at the crossroads in Tempest Bay. This rangy man with scarecrow eyes and the twelve year old girl who kept looking at everything like it puzzled her. It was only mid afternoon but he was tired and his leg ached and he could smell himself and he needed to take a shit. He was irritated with the girl who’d been in a grump all day. Yet as he stepped down onto tar seal that looked like it’d been laid in the 1930s, distractions faded. He felt obsession rising.

  Last stop on the south Wellington line. The bus driver, without any acknowledgement, hauled himself out of his chair, stomped down the steps, and headed for a building marked Doris Cafe in faded red font.

  No one else on the bus. No one else on the street. A small New Zealand coastal town at the end of the earth. The Pacific ocean and Antarctica the only places beyond.

  It looked so normal. With the world going the way it was, that was the strangest thing of all.

  • • •

  There’d been moments when he doubted the bus would even get them to Tempest Bay. Main services didn’t go the southern route any more. Not with the cutbacks. And the old banger had seen better days. A diesel engine and flaking paint and the windows scuffed with marker pen graffiti. Smell of dead nicotine imprinted into the woollen seat covers. But the driver, heavy and sullen, seemed to take pride in his charge. As the bus had wound its way from Wellington city out to the coast, chugging up hills or along lanes, regulars had hopped on and off. Canvas shopping bags and frame walkers and prams. Most greeted the driver with a cheery hello. The driver gave grunts back and never made eye contact.

  In a high thin notch above Roseneath the street was blocked by two cars parked across from each other. The driver hauled the bus to a stop like the brakeman on a cable car, banged the door switch, marched out onto the road. After five minutes of thumping on the doors of nearby houses he found the owner of a 1986 Subaru Legacy and told him to fooking well move it.

  The way was clear soon after. The driver climbed back onboard, satisfied, and restarted the engine. No sign from anyone that this was unusual. You took the bus, you took your chances.

  The girl had munched a chocolate chip biscuit as she watched from a perch on the seat above the wheel well. Purple-gold trainers with mismatched laces. Tired from the long journey but still absorbing everything. Twelve years old going on two hundred. The force and meaning of the man’s life with crumbs in her hair.

  She blinked. Looked around.

  The sky here is different, she’d said. Like it’s hiding something.

  The last other passenger had been a nurse with flaming pink hair. She hopped off carrying her shopping bags at a village far from Wellington. Thanked the driver. The driver grunted.

  Looking in his mirror the driver saw the man and the girl still sitting there. Stared. Kept the door open.

  Tempest Bay’s all that’s left. End of the run, the driver had said. Something in his voice. A question not asked.

  The man nodded. Didn’t move. The girl ignored everything except the puzzle of the sky.

  The door slammed shut on its wheezy pneumatics. The bus trundled on towards a high hill range ahead, and twenty minutes later entered a dark tunnel—

  Deep, deep dark. No lights. Dripping roof. Dynamite scars. The bus this tiny vessel. The driver snorting like the coachman of a horse-drawn carriage.

  Chugging, chugging, chugging through a twisty blackness that made your chest tight and the girl had clutched the man’s arm—

  Sunlight. Lemonwood and manuka trees flitting by. Jagged hills wrapping half the skyline, opening onto the blue-green curve of an ocean bay below. Wooden houses dotted along ridgelines and through the trees. Glimpses too quick to absorb except for one particular sight, one eyeblink that grabbed him, shocked him as the road insisted downwards to the shops.

  • • •

  Now standing at the crossroads he could feel the ocean salt in his nostrils. The light had a vivid intensity. The air circled, always moving, always on his face. There were odd flowers tufting from the edges of asphalt and doorways. Spindly purple things unfamiliar to him.

  Tempest Bay, then. A charming seaside town, at first glance. The cafe, the second hand bookstore, the dress shop, the stationers’. A place just a little bit out of time. But already he knew there was more here.

  His eyes on the western clifftops. Bleak and rough with the weathering of a hundred storms. A ruined tower stood framed against the sky. The thing he had seen. Old, broken, somehow ominous. It transfixed him. They’d been right to divert from their main journey and visit this place. Though he was anxious to be back on the road soon. You couldn’t stand still, any more. Not the way the world was going.

  He went to the luggage compartment on the side of the bus. Hauled it open. One small green suitcase, much used. The girl’s duffle shoulder bag. He grabbed them both, handed the bag to the girl.

  The driver emerged from the Doris cafe. A thick white bread sandwich poking out of greaseproof paper in his hand. Already munching at it, gobbling the onions. Stopped as he passed the man and the girl. Gulped his mouth clear. Looked them up and down. Something unexpected in his eyes.

  I do one route here a day, he said. One p.m. sharp. No more. You’d know that if you were local but you’re clearly not local, right?

  Clearly, the man said.

  The bus driver breathed deep.

  You get back on this bus, I’ll drop you in Roseneath or Kilbirnie or even the city centre, he said. Won’t even charge you the fare. That’s generosity, that is. That’s a fookin’ bargain. Now I leave when I finish this ploughman’s.

  The driver glanced at the girl with something like sympathy on his face. Shuffled up the stairs of the bus, hefted himself back into his chair. Tore into the sandwich with gusto, spraying crumbs on the already well-abused window glass.

  The man and the girl looked at each other. The look they sometimes shared, the conspiracy that the man found so precious. We’re in a strange land on a strange adventure, in a world pulling apart at the seams. Do we stop now, do the sensible thing when it’s offered?

  This place has secrets, she said matter-of-factly. Can we stay?

  No surprise. No fear. As though she’d been waiting for a town like this her whole life.

  We’re just passing through, he reminded her. We’ll walk out through the tunnel come nightfall, if need be.

  By the time the bus growled to life, its diesel engine spewing fumes in the air, and the doors shut and it began a tight turn round the edges of that ne
at little intersection, by the time their last ride out of town chugged past without them, they were entering the Doris cafe, committed.

  • • •

  The Doris cafe smelled like fatty bread. Grease-filled sandwiches, mock cream buns, one type of coffee. It at least had people. A thin moustached man behind the counter, a fussy-looking woman nearby at a table. Arguing about something but paused when they saw the man and the girl.

  Which one of you is Doris, the man said.

  The one that passed last summer, thank you for asking, the counter man said. I help you?

  Both locals looking at the newcomers like they were creatures emerged from the sea.

  Apologies, the man said. Just trying to open the mood. I need to use your bathroom and get some directions. If that’s okay.

  Bathroom’s out back through that door. But only for customers.

  I’ll have whatever’s good, the man said, and so will the girl.

  Everything’s good. But we’re just about to close up.

  You just served the bus driver, the man said.

  Joe knows his business. We don’t know yours.

  The man considered his options. He was someone who liked to get things done. Sometimes that involved a direct approach. But he sensed that wouldn’t be much use here, in this linoleum-tiled establishment out of time.

  My business is that I’ll pay double asking price for something cold and quick, the man said. In memory of Doris.

  A long pause. The counter man and the fussy-looking woman looked at each other. Gears whirring.

  We do a nice margarine cheddar sandwich and a lamington. Doris’s favourite.

  Two of those, the man said.

  He paid up. There was no electronic payment. For that matter, no one seemed to have a mobile phone or screen of any kind.

  He left the girl and went out back and found the bathroom behind a whitewashed door and did his business. A pink furry toilet seat. A little poster on the facing wall with a winking cartoon grocer done in thick ink lines. Mr Sixbox, whoever that was. Sells but never tells. The toilet seat was prickly on his arse. There was a fingernail embedded in the fur.

  He returned. The counter man was folding up two brown paper bags and arguing again with the woman. The girl sat on a counter chair playing possum, which was when she pretended to be a well-behaved child with respect for her elders. It was a trick that often worked.

  I guess we’re taking those double-price meals to go, the man said.

  I guess you are.

  Mind telling me where everyone’s gone, the man said. Town feels empty.

  Is that your directions you want?

  No just some curiosity, the man said.

  They’re down by the shoreline on traditional business. Nothing needed for you there.

  Alright, the man said. My directions are that I’m looking for someone. A meteorologist.

  Faces freezing. Long and cold. A blank wall.

  None like that here, I’m sorry, said the counter man. Maybe you’re wanting up Kilbirnie way, or even the Hutt Valley. Lots of meteorologists there.

  It was a choice right then of whether to stretch out, turn it into something more. Make an impact on this town right away. Or not. He turned it over fast in his mind, his back and neck muscles starting to tense—

  A voice from nowhere.

  Oh Gurney, the voice said. Do stop giving people the run-around. We don’t get many tourists. Maybe you’re why. You and Angela both.

  Something unfolded from behind the fussy woman at the table. Another woman, tiny and much much older, her skin so tight it was almost translucent. Wrapped in a green coat and a bodgie hat that might have been in fashion 80 years ago. The man hadn’t even noticed her.

  She shuffled over. Shook the man’s hand. Winked at the girl. Her skin felt like dry paper.

  Jessica Flower, she said with a smile. Welcome to Tempest Bay. We’ve got a little tension in town, makes us all a bit rude.

  He gave her the untrue name that he used these days. She nodded.

  What’s your interest, dearie? she said. In meteorologists of all things.

  Something in her eyes. Perception. He decided to play it straight.

  We’re headed through, the man said simply. Away from the weather up north. But this meteorologist had an idea I wanted to ask her about.

  On your way through? Jessica said.

  On our way through, the man said. Don’t want to add to any tension.

  He saw her respond, acknowledge him.

  Well now, Jessica said. Person you want’s up on the western clifftop. By the tower you’ve no doubt noticed. Best way’s to turn right out of the cafe, follow Bridey Street all around the curve then climb the iron stairs you’ll find there. But I’d stay off the beach, just now. As a courtesy. Can you do that for us, dearie?

  I can, the man said. And thank you.

  Jessica beamed. He could imagine young men a long time ago being suckered by the corners of her smile.

  I tell you what, maybe you’ll take a little peace offering up to the clifftop. Jessica said. There’s been a few disagreements of late. A slice of something, all nice and cheery.

  I’m not getting involved in anything, he began—

  But with surprising speed Jessica darted across to the counter and returned with a slice of what looked like dry pink raspberry cake cut into a four inch square. Popped it into one of his paper bags and winked, ignoring the baleful stares of the other two behind her, who had no courage to say anything but clearly despised every moment of whatever it was that was going on.

  You both have a lovely day in Tempest Bay, Jessica said, and that was that.

  He took the paper bags of lamingtons and sandwiches from the counter, gestured to the girl, and headed for the door. Felt daggers from the other two hitting his back. But it was clear who ruled the roost here.

  • • •

  Out on the street Tempest Bay was still eerily deserted. The early afternoon light hitting the clifftop tower. He felt somehow like the policeman in that old film the Wicker Man. Trying to unravel the town of Summerisle before it unravelled him. But he could handle it, he felt. Handle it and more.

  There was something else here, too, so far. They’d been rude and odd but there was no sign anyone had recognised him. That, in this world right now, was a double blessing.

  Western Clifftops

  They paused halfway up the old iron cliff stairs. His lungs felt bruised. He was not in good health, not for a long time now. But the view helped.

  Tempest Bay curved eastwards below. The town rough and beautiful and real like a child’s drawing. You could see that at some point long past a street grid had been imposed on older patterns. The ridges and shape of the hills. An ordered series of seven cottages right on the sand. Across a tidal inlet, a housing development near cricket fields. North east, past the town centre and the road to the tunnel, a wood with a boxy abandoned building peeking over the trees.

  He could smell gull shit and heavy salt wind and the rock dirt of the cliffs. And those spindly purple flowers. On the way along Bridey Street they’d been peeking out of letterbox bases and or hedgerows and paths. He would learn that Tempest Bay locals called them whisper fingers.

  The man looked again in his paper bag from the Doris Cafe. Despite his hunger, the margarine sandwich and the lamington just didn’t feel like something he could eat.

  The girl, of course, with the stomach of a goat, gobbled hers right down.

  What is a lamington? she said quizzically, spraying crumbs after eating it.

  I don’t know, the man said. Something to do with sponge and coconut.

  She thought this over.

  Lamingtons, she said, taste like dry spiders.

  She hadn’t spoken much that day. Conversations between them were random and sometimes difficult. Earlier on the bus they’d had a fight about which seat to take. Such things sometimes meant a day or two of quietly ignoring the universe. But he would come to find that Tempest Bay sparked conversations of all kinds.

  She picked one of the nearby flowers. Munched it thoughtfully as a chaser to the sandwich and lamington. Pointed.

  There, she said. Down by the beach.